A Florida judge on Monday increased the bond of a former University of Miami football player charged with murder after he was arrested for allegedly possessing synthetic marijuana while in jail.
Florida 11th Circuit Court Judge Cristina Miranda raised Rashaun Jones' bond from $500,000 to $650,000 and ordered him subjected to random monthly drug testing instead of granting the prosecution's request that she revoke his bond entirely.
Miranda said during a hearing that a factor in raising but not revoking his bond was that the alleged drug offense happened two years ago -- although he was arrested and charged last month -- and that she was not aware of any violations since then.
Jones, 40, is awaiting his second trial in the death of former teammate Bryan Pata. Pata was shot in the head outside his apartment shortly after football practice on Nov. 7, 2006, and while documents uncovered in an ESPN investigation showed police considered Jones a suspect early on, no arrest was made for 15 years.
A trial earlier this year ended in a hung jury, which prompted the judge to declare a mistrial. Jones has been in custody since his arrest in August 2021. He was first eligible for release on bond after a hearing in March 2022, at which Miranda set Jones' bond at $850,000. Typically, 10% of the bond amount -- in that case $85,000 -- is needed for release. Jones, who has been declared indigent by the court, had been unable to pay that amount.
After his first trial ended in a hung jury, Jones' attorneys asked Miranda to lower his bond to $50,000. She declined that request but did lower the bond to $500,000, which Jones said during a March 4 hearing that he still could not afford. His retrial is scheduled for September.
The alleged drug possession in 2024 did not come up at the March hearing, and Jones wasn't arrested on the felony charge of introducing or possessing controlled substances into a jail until June 23.
Miranda said had she known about the 2024 violation when Jones' attorneys asked to lower his bond after the mistrial ruling earlier this spring, she "might not have come to the same decision."
In response to an email asking why Jones was arrested two years after the reported incident, Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office spokesperson Samantha Choon said it was due to a testing backlog in the department's lab that has been ongoing since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Choon said because Jones was in custody for a case that wasn't going to trial right away, the suspected contraband that officers retrieved from Jones were put into the queue in 2024 and simply waited their turn in the lab. She said last month's testing was not triggered by a specific request from the state attorney's office, and the two cases are separate.
According to the police report, a corrections officer with a drug-sniffing dog found pieces of K-2 paper in Jones' shirt sleeve and waistband, and the officer alerted a detective on March 27, 2024.
K-2 paper is paper treated with man-made cannabis intended to mimic THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. The papers later tested positive for a controlled substance, ADB-Butinaca, according to the police report. A hearing is scheduled for July 23.